


The Cursed Tattoo

by Halloweenhead131



Category: Donten ni Warau Gaiden, 曇天に笑う | Donten ni Warau
Genre: Blood Magic, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Cursed Tattoo, F/M, Family Hardship, Implied/Referenced Death, Not Really Character Death, Onmyouji - Freeform, Pain, Past Hardship, Sixth Sense - Seeing Ghosts, explicit violence, relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-13 22:13:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3398144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halloweenhead131/pseuds/Halloweenhead131
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She looked in the mirror at the rolling red, curling lines down the very left side of her face with more than a slight disgust. Just like her mother had done so long ago. The face arched over her temple, just below her hair line and each scale seemed to move on it's own and the red glow seemed to condone her actions as she rested the sharpened blade against her skin. </p><p>She wouldn't kill herself no, but she would rather live with a scar than this horrid tattoo. The tail curled around the edge of her jaw before slipping underneath and to her throat. It would be difficult, but she would do it, even if it killed her, it would be better than this, this cursed tattoo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Goodbye Mother

_The woman looked down at the child with only a hint of disgust as the breeze blew through the blackish brown hair as the five year old looked back with_ pity _in her reddish orange eyes. Such a thing should not be there, within her eyes, the child shouldn't even know the_ meaning _of pity. Yet, there she was, standing in her little black and red kimono with all the tassels and ribbons in her hair drifting on the flowing air like water._

 _'_ Monster. _' The woman wouldn't dare say it to the child, her own child that she would have rather had died at birth than be cursed with that, that 'thing' on her face._

_That horrid mark of a curling red dragon down the left side of her face and around that red eye and eyebrow and down the side of a porcelain like cheek to her pointed chin. This girl could have been a geisha, but instead that mark was lain upon her face just seconds after he was born by the woman's husband, the gods know that she would never forgive the man for marking such a beautiful child._

_The woman spun on her heel, ready to leave when the child spoke up in a small tinkling, child-like voice, even though the words that came out of the peachy lips did not suit the age._

_"I'm a_ nightmare. Aren't I _?" The woman froze, her own blood red eyes widening at the thought of her child being her own worst nightmare, perhaps the child was. She had so many plans throughout the pregnancy, unknown of what her husband was planned, he had seemed to docile and complacent, listening to the woman's dreams for the baby if it was a boy and then listening more for if it was a girl. The new born babe had turned out to be a girl and the woman had been ecstatic, she was going to put her into schooling and give her a future but now that wasn't possible. So yes, it was her worst nightmare, her child would never become a well known geisha, let alone become known by even a name._

 _" **Karenai** , you're beautiful and I regret that, _yes _, this is not what I wanted....but you are_ my _daughter, to the end."_

' _To the end._ ' She thought bitterly as she watched them fill in the grave with the dark dirt of the ancestral graveyard, her mother was now just _one_ of the _many_ corpses within a field of them. She had never expected her father to go crazy with his expectation of her and kill her mother for speaking up, with a blunt edged knife no less. Yes, she had always been more intelligent than the other kids, stronger and faster, always moving and always thinking. She had been _teased_ for it, even _bullied_ because of it. Others said she was a _genius_ in her own right, but they never saw the mark, they never saw the cursed tattoo on her face.

People say with age that a tattoo will stretch and widen, causing it to turn ugly and make it into something that it wasn't at the start but not this one. Not this wretched _thing_ on the side of her face, of course not, instead of stretching it conformed to the contours of her face and the swirling lines still so pristine in age flowed down the side of her face like water and hit the edge of her chin before spilling over in blood red. She turned her head up to the clouds and wondered what the gods were thinking, did they even _care_?

The umbrella in her hands caught the wind, but she held on to the rippled handle with ease, it wasn't hard to go against mother nature, people did it everyday.

She watched as the last amount of dirt was thrown onto the pile above her mother and sighed, her tears had long since fallen and were all gone. Needless to say, her father would be never getting out of his new home and she was left to practically fend for herself, practically.

"You _must_ be Lady Karenai Seishin....my name is Taiko Kumo...Head of the Kumo shrine." His hair was black and his eyes were just as black as she watched him through the rain, it was just a light sprinkle but it matched the mood in the atmosphere so she really couldn't have cared less. His skin was as pale as snow, although that wouldn't be saying much for herself either and he had what the westerners called a ' _goatee_ ', she wondered why they called them that. It wasn't a type of tea, that would be disgusting and it wasn't shaped like a goat and she had seen plenty of the animals.

"I am, and I've heard of the Kumo shrine. But may I ask, _why_ are you here sir?" The lightness in her voice seemed to surprise him but he answered her question anyways.

"I knew your mother quite well, she used to come to the shrine a lot to talk with my wife and I don't feel right leaving a kid all alone." She smiled behind her hand, black nails glinting in the dim light the sun was giving out today through the clouds and she looked up with her vibrant red eyes through her black lashes and he visibly stiffened in the rain as she walked closer before lifting her umbrella and putting it over his head too.

"You'll catch a cold in the rain Mr. Kumo..." He smiled lightly and relaxed as he placed a hand on her shoulder and took the umbrella from her finger tips before steering her towards the shrine. She looked back over her shoulder, the wisps of air around her mothers grave shifted and shuddered before they compiled and a woman kneeled at the edge of the grave before looking over her shoulder as well, black hair in a formal bun and lips with the geisha red, eyes shining a blood red as the woman lifted a pale incorporeal hand.

' _Goodbye Karenai..._ ' She nodded over her shoulder, Taiko Kumo was oblivious to her actions as she blinked her eyes, the woman faded away into the mist of rain.

' _Goodbye mother...'_


	2. Vessel of the Wretched Snake

She watched as the golden brown tea swirled in the little cup, her dainty hands with black fingernails warmed up by the liquid within, she blew on the top before taking a careful sip, her bangs pulled out of her face for the day because no one was home. No one would see her greatest stigma sprawled across the very left side of her face.

She would have gone out exploring the area but it had been raining for a _whole week_ and walking out of her room would mean walking into the rain and across the courtyard into the main house _just_ to get an umbrella. Although she was surprised that when she came to the Kumo shrine that they had already set up a room away from the rest, items had been placed here and there for her and she enjoyed the peace and quiet away from bawling children and a rowdy ten year old who always wanted to play or fight the ' _bad_ ' guys. But it felt almost too far away, as if they were keeping some kind of secret that she didn't know about and that they didn't need for her to know about just to live in their presence.

It was only a light sprinkle, but she would rather not dirty the new kimono that lady Kumo had been kind enough to buy for her when she was in town one day, she appreciated the sentiment and that the woman went out of her way to make Karenai feel peaceful at her new home. But she knew this wasn't her real home even when they tried so hard, she really did appreciate the effort it took though.

She sipped from the tea in her hands and the half bitter, half sweet taste of the liquid rolling across her tongue as she savoured it's bitter sweet flavour although she couldn't remember just what kind of leaves it was made from. She put the cup down and stood, her robes falling in waves around her, the blood reds and vibrant orange hues across the sleeves and neckline that depicted a sunset in the early afternoon hours. Her white tabi'ed feet softly padded across the flooring making absolutely no noise as she seemed to float to a small table taking up one end of the room.

She kneeled once again, pushing the extra fabric of her kimono underneath her knees and legs before scooting forward slightly before looking at the contents of the table. Filled with paper manikins and incense that had been burning for almost a week, leaves of various plants sat in small dried out piles before she picked one up with the tip of two of her fingers and holding it up to her nose.

The scent was bitter and made her nose burn and the leaf crackled with the air pressure, the vibrant purple spotted green leaf with yellow veining may have made it look like it was poisonous but really the leaf was used for pain of the ailing person, it was usually used for a peaceful death as the user would be unable to move after it had been swallowed, that or it would be used for operation so that they felt no pain as the procedure took place.

She let the leaf fall from her fingers and back into it's pile, a small knife sat off to one side, along with a brush and ink in a small well with blank paper manikins that she had made many days before and had never really gotten to finish. With the childish Taiko Kumo and his son Tenka ho was the oldest of his boys with Taiko wanting yet another child she wondered how anything had ver gotten done. But when he had met the lady of the house she had known immediately, she was the one that kept things working from day to day and kept everything from falling apart in the house.

That and the woman made wonderful fried rice, Karenai smiled lightly at her still full stomach as she looked down at her fingers, the nails had grown too long and the calluses on her palms had already grown slightly soft. She couldn't let that happen now could she, she stood and walked to the door and looked out into the rain, it was foggy outside, as steam rose from the dry land and mixed with the cold air, a slight breeze blew past her an she shivered at the lingering touches of cold on her pale skin.

She didn't know how _long_ they would be gone, an even if they did see her train it wouldn't matter, her loyalty wasn't with her clan anymore, it was to the Kumo household, if they wanted to use her like a tool she was born to be, then so be it. It was better to be used and thrown away to not do anything at all, at least if she was used she would be able to die fighting.

She closed the door, drowning out the calming sounds of the rain and the breeze that touched her scarred skin as well as keeping in the warmth from the candles and the heavy smell of incense that she kept burning.

She took a breath, feeling the air shift inside the room, feeling the corners of the room as she slipped her fingers into the rope binding her robes to her body and slipped the red cord from her waist revealing her shinobi garb underneath. The oranges and reds a bright contrast along with the black, the intwining of leather and soft cotton running down her arms and legs and the high necked collar around her throat with the metal that gleamed dully and reflected the candles lit across the whole room as shadows converged and shifted to the middle of the room.

The shiki both had tanned skin, the four dots lining the right side of their faces in a vertical line down from underneath the glowing gold coloured eyes. Black hair that was long and straight, put up into high pony tails and black shinobi garb also covered their bodies from neck to toe.

" _Try_ and _kill_ me." Her soft words were belied the fact that she said that if they could, that they could tip her apart limb from limb, the swords in their hands sharp enough that they would cut the thick wood of an oak tree with the strength of eight men combined. Perhaps her words were a little strong, but the fact that they were mostly given free reign to to what they wanted in this world would not stop at just a few words, these were the shiki of the Tetsou clan, and they were bound by word and blood to do what their master presents.

Karenai may have gone by the name of _Akumu_ , but that wasn't her clan name, it was a taken name that she used to hide her true identity and perhaps she would like to keep it that way but it wasn't by the fact that the _Tetsou_ were mostly extinct. It was why they were mostly extinct.

Since early in her life she had been trained by the remnants of the Tetsou clan, a shinobi clan that believed the motto, ' _An eye for a eye_ ' and that would have been engrained into Karenai's head if not for the fact that if she believed it, she would not be here herself and the fact that she believed in the motto, ' _If the world was an eye for a eye, that would make the whole world blind._ ' Let's face it, no one wants to lose an eye because of a wrong they did.

She stepped to the side as a sword slide past her face, she watched the gleam of metal as it sparkled in the light, she could see the reflection of both her eyes in the sword and wondered what would happen if she hadn't been born into such a clan, would she still have their eyes, the blood red that seemed to glow with an eery light when angered? Would she still have the same pale, scarred skin from the years of training she was put through, would she still have the _wretched_ curling tattoo?

Probably not, but as she fought her own shiki she didn't realize that she had been watched from the very start by the eyes that belonged to the man that took her in, who had in fact been at the house the whole time and had watched as she had summoned the shiki's to her side with almost no effort. Now he knew why she kept to herself as he looked at the curling tattoo that seemed to embrace the left side of Karenai's heart shaped face like the palm of a lover to his woman.

He looked at his hands, down in his lap and wondered if he could help her the way he and her mother had planned, even the Tetsou clan, even though the clan itself was mostly unknown to the fact, that they too, could be the vessel of the _Orochi_.


	3. Save Me from Myself

Sweat dripped down her nose, it stung the new cut on her arm as she heaved herself up to her feet, paper manikins littered the floor in a heaps, she picked one up and the whole thing just slid in half, she had focused more on making her own hands bleed than what her attackers were trying to do and that had made her break a sweat and made her breath harder and faster like she had run for miles without a stop.

Thats exactly how she _wanted_ to feel though, she had new blisters on her hands to drain, the bruises that would fade and new cuts to bandage and heal over time, most of them would probably scar but she couldn't care less as her hair started to slowly curl at the ends, making the brownish black strands wave.

"You look dead tired." Her head whipped up and to the side, one of her blistered and bruised hands cupping the very left side of her face ad turning it from sight as she watched his boots come into view. He had _seen_ hadn't he, how did she not know he was even in the room, she was getting lazy, she was trusting these people too much and she had let her guard down at the worst of times. Why hadn't she seen it before, keeping her away from the house, letting her do mostly as she pleases although the weapons had been taken from her, had her mother given up and had contracted this man to kill her after her death?

"You're too tense. Sit down so I can take a look at your hands." She turned away instead and went to walk away but he caught her by the shoulder and spun her around before enveloping her in a hug, she went rigid, the cloth that covered his body stung the wounds that lined her small body, and the tightness in the way he held her as if he didn't want her to leave made her really wonder what she was even doing. Why was she _allowing_ him to hold her like she was his very own flesh and blood, why was she even _here_ in the first place when she had a home she could go back to? _Why?_ She thought this as her one arm wrapped around his back as her other was trapped against her face. Why was she _hugging_ him back?

"I met you when you were just a child, days after you were born." She really didn't want to hear this, but she couldn't just _escape_ and maybe, as the strings wrapped around her heart _tugged_ slightly at the emotions masked by the _physical_ pain of her body, of the _emotional_ pain of losing her mother, of the _mental_ pain of having no one to talk to anymore. Perhaps thats what she _wanted_ , somewhere to _belong_ , somewhere to go and to be a family with someone again, to learn how to _love_ again.

"You were so small, and looked so fragile. That's when I first saw your tattoo, you don't need to hide it from me..." He pulled away, but still held her by the shoulders, her hand was still covering the tattoo, the horrid tattoo that marked her face for the rest of her life, the tattoo that her mother said to not let anyone ever see and she let her other arm drop to her side. Taiko sighed and shook his head, his eyes scanned the wounds made from the shiki and then the floor covered in pieces of skillfully cut paper manikins, the black ink on the white surfaces peering out at the both of them.

" _Sit_ , I'll wrap your wounds." He let go of her shoulders and she was still tense, the warmth from his hands lingered slightly and it reminded her of the way her mother used to look at her, inspecting to see what her wretched father had done for that day. She remembered when she had come back to the house soaking wet from head to toe in the middle of winter, her eyelashes had frozen and frost had started to gather on the skin at her bare shoulders as she shivered in the cold. Her mother had screamed and yelled for hours at him, had beat him with her fists and had kicked him out for a _whole week_. This was her chance to leave, so _why_ wasn't she taking it? Perhaps she wanted to see and hear what he had to say, perhaps it would put the nightmares that she had since she was a child at ease, perhaps she wouldn't have to deal with the image of her father _killing_ her mother over and over again like some sick play that was replayed everyday.

Karenai took the pins out of her hair and let her bangs hide the tattoo, he may have seen it before but that didn't mean she wanted him to see it ever again. She sat in the midst of all the paper, picking one up and rubbing it between her fingers, the paper was brittle and it cracked and tore apart as her fingers rendered it entirely useless. A tray was set down in front of her, as Taiko flopped himself down and then maneuvered his legs to sit cross legged in front of her as she looked down at the various contents of the tray. Antiseptic vials, bandages and wraps, utensils to wipe the blood from her face as Taiko started to work on cleaning the cuts on her hands.

He, for the most part was gentle enough to remind her of the way her mother had taken care of her, with gentle brushes of her fingers against the wounds that had always littered her skin, the way she would lean forward and give a gentle _loving_ kiss to Karenai's forehead afterward to ease more of the pain. But then she remembered the softness which was not Taiko's hand, and as Karenai grew taller and grew into the body she had now, their hands had been the same size but Taiko's was larger, had thicker fingers and he didn't have the nails that her mother had.

She watched as he used the pin he had picked up to drain the blisters and she didn't even flinch as he nicked at the sensitive skin underneath once, the water underneath her skin hit the cloth that had been placed under her hand as it dripped off her fingers, from irritation her hand was a splotchy red as he wiped the remnants of the water from her hand before going around and disinfecting the wounds, the slight sting made her heart beat faster and her blood pump thickly through her veins as she swallowed.

"Your mother and I had been friends since we were teenagers, and I would have married her if it hadn't been for her family." Karenai inwardly cringed at the mention of her mothers variously extended family line of spirit seers and businessmen that were so _cut throat_ that they would sell their child off to a wealthy man just for money. It was a horrid lifestyle that her mother had gone through, paraded around like a over blown _peacock_ with the promise of a dowry thrown on top. Taiko sighed and started wrapping her hand with pristine bandages until they hit her wounds in which they were dotted with blood that slowly turned pink as layers upon layers were added on.

"But I was ecstatic when she said I could see you. They had bundled you up in the traditional cloth of the household, the fabric had been even scratchy against my skin but you seemed to be perfectly fine with it..." He wrapped her last finger up in white bandages, she looked like she had gone through war, the speckled bandages were up to her elbows and she was pretty sure he would be adding more soon before he started on her other hand with the pin held between his fingers.

"When I asked about the tattoo that had been so _daringly_ tattooed on you just after your birth she had _cried_ in my arms..." Her bandaged fingers were rough against the tainted skin at the left side of her face, her sense of touch put off because of the bandages. Her mother had cried a lot, mostly when she saw the tattoo on the side of Karenai's face, sometimes she would look at the tattoo with _distain_ , she knew her mother had problems, always had, something wrong with the nerves in the brain or something, but Karenai wasn't a doctor and neither was a she a magic man.

"That was the day I had promised your mother that if she couldn't protect you any longer, that I would in her stead." Taiko looked up, meeting the blood red eyes of the girl in front of him and Karenai stared back, her face a emotionless mask as he said the next words that she hated the most.

"Not just from others...but from _yourself_."


	4. The Boar

As she brushed her hair with the comb, untangling the knots that had built up with sleep and brushing down the random curls that seemed to spring up here and there on her head she looked in the mirror as the comb went through her hair for the lat time that day before she put it down. Plucking a red string from the small table she wrapped it around the hair she had pulled to one side of her head and tied it into a neat knot before pulling her normal beads into place below it before letting her hands drop to her lap. Her brownish black bangs hanging in front of her left eye, hiding the thing she _hated_ the most. She didn't hate _herself_ , no, that would be a whole different story, she hated the thing that _marked_ her as a freak for the rest of her life. A thing that if the population that was normal, would disown her from their ranks, would outcast her like her family had and would leave her to rot and die in a dank place that would be her hell for the rest of her life.

She pushed her bangs back past her ear slowly, pulling the hair away from her face and the red tattoo made itself known to the fresh morning air inside her room from the small windows. In the mirror she sat in front of reflected the brilliant red of the tattoo back at her and her lips pulled into a angry scowl, her eyes thinning as they narrowed and dark eyelashes almost touching her cheeks as her eyelids lowered over her blood red eyes.

The _Tebori Method_ , a type of method that where a row of needles are wrapped or taped to a bamboo handle, dipped in ink and then applied to the skin, moving back and forth while making a distinctive sound. She didn't remember the process, she couldn't remember the pain that it took just to do each and _every single_ red scale and tooth perfectly rounded and sharpened, to get the claws curved so it seemed that it would pierce the skin on contact, to make the dragon curl it's way down the very left side of her face and down half of her throat.

It looked like someone had just _poured_ the red ink into her skin and it had just followed the lines by itself, creating the tattoo that _cursed_ her existence to the very end. Once it had only decorated the area of her temple but now it had gone down the whole quarter of her face and to the middle of her throat, it seemed to be growing lately, ever since her mother had died and her father in prison, it was eery, this tattoo that had been put on her when she was too young to remember and she still didn't know just what it did so far.

Her father had muttered about a higher power sometimes, had muttered that the ' _dragon_ ' would eat the ' _snake_ ' or whatever, but for some reason, Karenai couldn't shake the slight feeling that he was right, perhaps only this one time, she didn't know the meaning of most of his mutterings though.

She shook her head and let the hair fall to the left side of her face once again, hiding her pain and sorrow behind a curtain of blackish brown tresses that her mother had loved so much. She picked herself up from the floor, brushing off her knees from the dirt within the room as she did so, her fingers digging into soft cotton fabric before she straightened up, the black contrasted so greatly with the reds, oranges and yellows, the chains that hung across her chest sparkled dimly as she straightened out her sleeves that ran all the way down to her palms with the shoulders slightly puffed up.

She hadn't made another move to hide the fact that she was a shinobi from Tenka or Taiko again, even lady Kumo liked the fact that she didn't feel the need to wear garb that made her feel _uncomfortable_ , she had gotten a lot of questions from Tenka on what was this and what was that but now the Kumo's had opted to give the weapons they had confiscated back to her. She had been thankful, because now with her weapons she didn't feel as naked as she did before, like a new born babe without the skill to fight in a life or death battle.

She picked up the white sheathed sword from it's stand and looked at it, it had been her mothers before it was hers and she wondered just what purpose was this sword meant for. It seemed welded shut for the most part, it wouldn't unsheathe and it wouldn't cut but it would hit hard and fast given to the right person who could use it. She swung it around her hand, the sheath gleaming with the dim light that was inside the room, the candles that had once been lit had been blown out for the night, she would have to come back and light them again later. She threw the strap over her shoulder before taking the time to walk over to the shoji doors of her room, she didn't even get far enough to touch before she dove out of the way as something crashed through the door.

The shoji wasn't even a _door_ anymore, it was _splinters_ across the ground with a flutter of rice paper here and there as a angry looking boar that had many scars across it's body stood in the dust like structure of what once was a door. To be honest it looked like a _giant bull_ that just wanted to kill her, animals were unpredictable, she would have rather dealt with humans than animals. It snorted and turned, it's short tail hanging limp behind it and she for a moment, wished that she could blend into the wall before she was up and on her feet running. It followed way too close with the beat of hooves behind her for the _pleasure_ of _comfort_.


End file.
